


Fragmented

by Aaronlisa



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 13:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14020857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: There’s too much random information racing about her head for one brain to hold.





	Fragmented

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fest #7 at Smallfandomfest for the prompt of Echo and "too much information."

It’s not until she’s safely ensconced in the dollhouse that everything beings to overwhelm her. Not only is she aware but also she is also far from being alone. The cacophony of voices, of personalities, had been muted during the fight with Alpha. Then they were all too concerned with saving Caroline, that crucial element that they believed made them real. 

Yet lying in Echo’s familiar yet strange pod waiting for sleep, someone, Echo’s not sure who quite yet since all of their voices sound like her own, hisses out the suggestion that they are all very much real with or without Caroline added to the mix. It brings Echo’s claim that this is still Caroline’s body to the surface of their collective thoughts. And someone else, perhaps it’s Tandy, wants to know what will become of Echo, of all of them, if they just let Caroline back in? How real are any of them if and when Caroline takes back ownership of her body and lays claim to what they have each felt was theirs and theirs alone? 

No one has the answer to that question and one by one each voice falls silent until Echo falls asleep despite the weight of all their fears pressing down on her. 

* * *

When she is first imprinted with someone new, each of them is walled up, including Echo, and she becomes whoever Topher has created for her to become. The voices are muted and dulled and only brief flashes of memory and understanding can bleed through those heavy stone walls. 

Yet afterwards when she “wakes up” back in the dollhouse with Topher’s gentle smile (the one that he only reserves for the actives) and she’s once again Echo, she is overwhelmed by the reams of information that are still stuck in her head despite Topher’s attempts to wipe her. Another voice is added to the choir. Another person who desperately wants to lay permanent claim to the body that she had believed to be solely hers. It is only through sheer will that Echo manages to keep tight control of the others so that she can go through the motions. 

Echo is very aware of how Boyd watches her. He suspects something, she is certain of that. And she is afraid of what will happen if his suspicions are proved right. 

However every now and then, something will happen and the tightly defined walls that she has built in her crowded mind will blur and Echo won’t be Echo anymore for a brief flash. And afterwards, the question of Caroline always raises its ugly head. Do they allow Caroline back in and destroy who Echo is? Who they are? For once and forever more? 

No one knows the answer. 

* * *

Echo’s headaches develop slowly but as the cacophony of voices grows with each new personality that Topher imprints her with, the headaches do as well. There’s too much random information racing about her head for one brain to hold. Too many varying opinions to listen to; too many personalities who are afraid of Caroline, who’s become the boogey man in the recesses of Echo’s mind. And it always comes back to Caroline, every single time. 

* * *

She’s not sure when she begins to fear Caroline. Although she thinks that it is sometime when it’s just her and Paul out in the wilderness, away from the safety of the dollhouse and it’s regimented routine. It’s around the time that they become one identity, instead of splinters of a whole. It is no longer her versus them, as they meld into Echo. Yet the sly whispers about Caroline never do stop. 

* * *

Echo fears Caroline more than anything else. Even more than she fears Rossum and despite her ever growing fear, the knowledge that she needs Caroline in order to save them all from Rossum presses down on her every second of every day. The longer she delays, the more that Echo knows the worse that it will be in the end. Caroline is the key to bringing down Rossum. That knowledge doesn’t stop the fear that Caroline at heart is a terrorist. Caroline’s goals have always been to destroy no matter what the cost may be. Echo worries about what price she’ll have to pay when she uses Caroline’s knowledge and throws the door wide open for the pretty Caroline to open up shop in her body. 

The information that she may have to sacrifice herself, the others, in order to save the world weighs heavily on her shoulder, yet Echo knows that she can’t change her course now. Caroline is needed no matter how much Echo wants to take the wedge and destroy it again so that not even geniuses like Topher or Bennett can put it back together again. 

* * *

Once Caroline is comfortably back in her body, after the head has been hewn from the massive snake that is Rossum, Caroline’s voice is dulled and quiet. She doesn’t fight for control of her body like they had all assumed. She follows the status quo and once more gives herself up to Echo. This time, it’s a different Echo and Caroline’s not on some hard drive hidden away, but the results are still the same. Her voice is the smallest of them all. 

The knowledge, the information, that she had always been the key to Rossum’s master plan has overwhelmed her. The information that she has always been a puppet in Boyd Langton’s plans break her into a million tiny pieces from which she can’t really be made whole again. 

In the end, Caroline becomes just another personality inside of Echo’s head. A personality that Echo can wear like a set of clothes and just as easily discard at will. Caroline no longer wants her body; she no longer wants to fight the battle that she had been deceived into fighting. Instead Caroline allows Echo to retain control, to deal with the knowledge, the weight of all of the information filled on their overloaded brain, and to fight the war that Caroline had unwittingly begun. 

And Echo does so as Alpha’s creation, certain that her existence had always been intended. Although Echo sometimes finds herself wondering if Boyd had always planned for his own destruction as she fights the war that was started a long time ago, she finds that it is easier to let Caroline wonder about who they are and how they were created and manipulated. 

With Alpha’s help, Echo learns to push aside all of the information that can overwhelm, damage and destroy her. She learns to be more and more selective in what she retains on a day-to-day basis and how to recall what she might need in an instant. Echo learns to remain whole and unfragmented. 

((END))


End file.
